October 12, 2007

Sitting here watching the Sox cream the Indians in hi-def. As the game winds down, attention shifts to changes baseball broadcasting since I last paid much attention to it. One is that watching players spit is far less entertaining than it was in old low-def. Terry Francona looks like he’s barfing. I’ll bet he expectorates a quart of hock every game. Another is that the network now has a mike trained on the ball as it flies from pitcher to catcher (or hitter) at ninety-some miles an hour. It’s not a whooshing sound, but more like a Star Wars light sabre with low batteries. Strange.

Oddest of all is the addition of hard-on medicine to the customary advertising line-up of beer and truck pitches. “What’s ‘erectile dysfunction’?” the kid asks. “What’s a priapasm?” The latter is just one among the long roster of truly scary side effects for Levitra and Cialis. Prior to this game the only place I saw those products advertised was in my daily spam basket. Now I have to euphemize my way around obvious questions about the sexual inadequacies of aging couch tubers.